Experiments in portal magic

[Verin Vetis Malphus]

Verin was on the beach, around dusk. Having memorised his altered spell, he began scrawling in the sand.

A short while later, it was done and the circle was complete. He began the spell, drawing in energy from the area and channeling it into the sigil. Before long, a portal had opened up in midair. However, Verin was not faced with any familiar sights and instead was greeted with what appeared to be a shifting wall of screaming skulls.

"...Huh. I must have written down something wrong..." Verin looked down at his circle, looking for a misused word or a smudged line, ignoring the gateway completely.

[Susan Daunt]

Susan was good ways down the beach, going through her knife drills and working through the fading soreness of her bruises from the spar with Beia, when an ethereal something screamed passed her ear. The Daunt scion didn't *quite* startle, too well trained for that, but she did pause and look back, frowning as she noticed the faint screaming. Okay. This could be bad. Time to check it out...

(Your portal, Verrin, post more of it's and your hijinks and I'll have Susan show up on scene. Seems promising this. )

[Verin Vetis Malphus]

"Well, this simply isn't right..." Obviously, the spell was flawed in its core concept. Ritual magic was barely worth the effort, and mosy of the time it seemed to go wrong. Still, experimentation was what magic was all about, and give or take a few world-shattering explosions throughout history the risk was well worth the award. "Let's see how this works..." Having altered the spell, the portal clouded over. A few seconds later, the portal showed some form of prison, with a massive demon chained up. When it spotted him, the creature bellowed and tried to force the chains. So it could see him, too. Not much of a problem: nothing could go through the portal. It wouldn't get him home, but an interdimensional scrying portal could have its uses.

"Yeah, keep shouting, somehow I doubt you're getting out of there any time soon." Verin mumbled. Now, what was wrong with this thing? The portal worked, but it seemed tying it down to a specific place required some thought... now, how to...

"Will you shut up?!" Verin shouted at the captive demon. It didn't work.

[Susan Daunt]

Goaded into quicker action by the demon's roar, Susan pounded towards the source of the disturbance, stubby ponytail flapping behind her and a knife in either hand. Her frown turned into a scowl as she spotted Verrin distinctive profile and the howling thing he was no doubt planning to sell all their souls to in order to advance whatever plan he had in mind.

"By the Authority vested in the Chosen Families by the Blackstone Charter of 1658," the Daunt scion began after coming to a halt, quoting the rulebook she had been trained to live her life, "I'm going to have to ask you to explain what the hell you hope to acheive with that, and to stop if it means hurting other people. Officially, Verrin."

She smiled grimly and reversed her grip on her knives, wielding them like matte-black steel nightsticks instead of short-swords, booted feet in a fighting stance.

[Verin Vetis Malphus]

Verin let this new distraction finish her little speech, and then turned to face her, laughing. "Oh, the girl from magic class. With all that "diplomacy and faith" crap, right?" Verin laughed again. "Look, just go away. I don't bow to your authority and to be honest, I'd sooner turn to a felhound for intelligent conversation."

[Susan Daunt]

Okay, she'd warned him. His fault that he choose to not be civil, and IEC doctrine took a 'subdue first and face reprimands later' perspective with these things. Better that than people getting hurt, even with her not technically official yet authority.

"Is that so?" she grinned at the taller tiefling before leaping at Verin, right knife hilt screaming at his face in a blow fit to knock a a normal human unconsicious in one hit. If he shrugged that off, she'd ratchet it up a few levels, but until then, she'd try to avoid killing him.

[Verin Vetis Malphus]

Verin fell backwards, and the portal faltered and closed. He was bleeding, which was a usual occurence, but usually he had a long-dead wizard or himself to blame for that. He tried to get back up, slowly, still disoriented. The pain was replaced with anger as he tried to get back on his feet.

"Okay. Okay, I get it." Verin coughed. The world was shaking. "That was completely uncalled for, you know." He forced himself to stand up.

[Susan Daunt]

"So were your words," countered Susan gamely as she watched him get back to his feet, having sheathed one weapon in her harness with the same grin on her face, the other hanging loosely in her right hand, hilt stained with Verin's blood.

"So, anyway, long as you seem to have put the magic away, what *were* you trying to do with that unpleasant-seeming spell right then?" she continued with a chuckle, "Surely anything worth doing is worth explaining politely to a well-meaning classmate."

[Verin Vetis Malphus]

Was she serious? He actually couldn't believe that worked. He laughed a little, still recovering. "...You know, I stand by my comment about intelligence." With that, he jumped backwards, using his wings to glide further back. He'd cleared some distance between him and the upstart human. "I'm afraid that you've given me no choice but to defend myself. But don't worry, I'll try my best to enjoy turning my despicable assailant into ash." He threw a fireball at Susan, then started drawing energy from the area and directing towards her in an attempt to immolate her.

[Susan Daunt]

Susan merely shook her head at Verin's barb, smile not fading as she tumbled out of the path of the fireball and into an arching charge at the tiefling, soaking what hits she couldn't avoid via jinking. As if hurried shots like this were going to slow her down. Please. A cocky amateur like the kind of trash her family would drag off to the Guild on their first offense and not even bother their superiors.

And that was why, when the singed Daunt scion, her clothing smoking, leapt at Verin with her left fist extended, the blow would only be strong enough embed his skull in a wall if it hit, not knock it clean through it.

[Verin Vetis Malphus]

Verin wasn't ready for the attack, because most humans were completely incapacitated after the first hit and then he could deal with them at his leisure. He raised his hands up to defend himself and tried to push himself further back. Distance, that was the key.

Verin heard his right arm snap before he felt it, and the force of the hit knocked him back further than he intended. The pain was excruciating, but he tried his best not to let it show. A look of psychotic glee spread across his face. "Do that again. Do it. I dare you." Lightning arced between the fingers of his left hand. This time, he would be ready.

[Susan Daunt]

Having thumped to a stop after striking ten feet away, Susan shook her head sadly. "How about we do something you magic-loving Malphus should be good at avoiding? You're just embarassing yourself so far," she countered, snatching one of her six knives out of it's harness and hurling it at Verin's chest hilt first with whistling speed.

Cracked ribs weren't lethal force, were they? Nah. Just distract him from his casting some more, that's all. Beside's she had time to do this carefully.

[Verin Vetis Malphus]

Verin twisted around to avoid the blade, and it sped past him. He'd been more prepared this time, even if she hadn't done what he wanted her to do. "Come on. This was all going so well, don't resort to this crap now." He fired the lightning he'd been building up, hopefully enough to stun her.

[Susan Daunt]

"Grrrrrngh!" grunted the Daunt scion as the bolt clipped her side and sent jolts of sorcerous lightning through her frame, sparks jolting between her clenched teeth. Oh, Powers That Be, that *HURT*, and if she hadn't been precisely who she was, she'd be dead on the spot. Under the adrenilen she still felt half-cooked...

"Okay, okay..," Susan hissed, staying on her feet, and panting as she clenched her weapon tighter, "But you escalated this first."

And then, she spun forward, a pettite, blond-haired juggernaut of righteous anger, swinging her long knife two-handed at Verin in a disembowling strike, no restraint this time. If he wanted to play like he could soak lethal damage, she'd return the favor. One, two, three times sang the weapon, her eyes flashing.

[Verin Vetis Malphus]

Ah, yes. Up close again, except this time he'd planned this. Verin jumped back to dodge the first strike, but wasn't quick enough to avoid the second. Well, that was a setback. Getting ripped nearly in half hadn't been part of the plan. He had to act now.

Verin fought the pain as best he could and reached out, trying to grab onto Susan, his hand charged with electricity.

[Susan Daunt]

On the attack as she was, Susan wasn't in a position to dodge and the touch hit her shoulder to discharge into her frame. She exhaled with the pain, feeling her flesh cook by degrees beneath her smoldering clothing. More pain to pay later.

But that wasn't going to stop her.

The Daunt scion took advantage of Verin's closeness to spin out at his knee with bone-cracking force with her booted foot, knife hand following up to carve more flesh from his side.

[Verin Vetis Malphus]

"Just die already!" Verin shouted as his knee cracked and he fell. He hadn't managed to get a grip that time. This was so much easier in the netherworld, he could cast anything almost instantly. Magic was so sparse here.

Emergency tactics were called for. He used his own energy to emit a close blast of fire, turning the area near him into an inferno for a short while. It left him completely drained, which was even more dangerous in his current state, but he didn't see any other option.

[Prof. Michael Freeman]

A burst of force, with only the slightest moderation for comfort, grabbed Susan and hurled her up the beach and clear of the conflagration. At the same time, cold blue light flooded the beach from a point on its western fringe.

"Miss Daunt," Professor Freeman said, clearly not pleased. He walked close to the fire, the light bobbing in time with the rowan-wood staff it hovered over.

"And mister Malphus," he added. "No surprise there."

Expecting that Susan would give him something closer to the truth, he turned back to face her.

"I'm assuming you have a very good reason for this?"

[Susan Daunt]

"Sir," she volunteered with a groan, lying half-buried in a dune, really not feeling like moving but glad to have a chance to avoid the 'fall down on your foe blade first while fainting' tactic on her list of diminishing options.

"I found Verin practising an... evil looking spell and asked him to explain what it was," she muttered without rising, "He rudely refused. I moved to stop him, and... he tried to kill me to which I replied in kind. And... Owwww... Then you showed up. Thank you for that, Sir. Showing up. That is."

[Prof. Michael Freeman]

Well, that was interesting. Maybe a militant upbringing wasn't entirely without merit - Susan had admitted that she'd started the fight, something that Professor Freeman would have guessed would take a team of horses to drag out of anyone else. There would, of course, be another side to the story as soon as Verin started talking.

"Go away," Professor Freeman said to the flames, putting enough power into the words to make it more of a command than anything else. He paused long enough to take in Verin's condition, and then think about medical complications.

Rather than try to use any healing spells on Verin (which potentially could react very nastily with his half-demon nature), Professor Freeman opted for the magical equivalent of battlefield first-aid. The spell would hold wounds closed, re-form broken joints and bones, and at least take most of the edge off the pain, without any of the positive energy that made healing nonhumans so risky. It wouldn't fix anything, but it would (hopefully) hold Verin together until he could get the lot of them back to the infirmary.

"Can you walk?" he asked Susan.

[Susan Daunt]

"A Daunt Endures," half-quoted Susan on auto pilot as she focused on making her aching muscles obey her. Everything hurt, a dull, omnipresent throb. Even her hair if that was possible. She stumbled to her feet, breathing heavy and quick before putting one foot in front of the other to prove it was possible and she was, in point of fact, utterly fine to go six more rounds with her adversary.

Then she nearly staggered from her feet, taking another step that was just that much smoother, her smile pained but triumphant, looking vaguely for her two lost knives... Care for your tools than yourself, that was the Tradition...

[Verin Vetis Malphus]

Ah, death. For him, it would be but a fleeting moment trapped in the void. He would be back, maybe he'd even get home this time. That was why he was lying broken on the sand, not attempting to heal himself or get up. Maybe it was the damage to his head, maybe it was the incredible pain, but some part of him accepted his fate. The rest of him just wanted it to end. Darkness was corrupting his vision. The first real sleep he'd had in so long...

And yet, he was still here on this beach. The pain wasn't as prominent, but it was still there. The professor was nearby. "This... this isn't the void, is it? Which means you brought me back." He sat up slowly. "And they say I'm the demon."

[Prof. Michael Freeman]

"I'm just looking out for you," Professor Freeman said. "I'd hate to see the detentions you'd rack up for missing classes due to death."

After taking a closer look at Verin's injuries, he continued.

"You are not going to be walking back to the academy. Try to relax."

Moving casualties is never easy. Even with modern technology, mild bounces and jolts could easily be enough to ruin someone's day - or chances of recovery. Even with magic, one would have to be very careful.

Professor Freeman was rather good at the whole "being careful" thing. His spell, a soft, flexible platform, started three feet below the surface of the sand, conveniently ignoring the tiny rocks and only lifting parts of Verin. It rose slowly, until Verin was lying well above the ground, supported by a dimly glowing disc.

[Verin Vetis Malphus]

"You don't need to help me. I've been through worse before." Verin tried to get off the platform, while thinking of a way to get out of this situation. Of course, being a demon, "lie" was the first option. Well, he might as well stick to what he had said earlier. And the best lies contained just a little truth.

"You could have just let me die, you know. I'd be out of everyone's way, and a few years or so later I get home. It's a win-win, right?"

[Susan Daunt]

Susan, bending over stiffly to retreive her last weapon, glared at Verin's back through narrowed eyes. Something was seriously wrong with him. There was a world's worth of difference between sacrificing yourself in battle and dying needlessly outside it to avoid the consequences of your actions. Not that world wouldn't be a better place without Verin poluting it, but...

She exhaled forcefully and sheathed the weapon with a grunt of pain and a half-pivot back towards Professor Freeman.

[William Jason Fredericks]

_{"People throwing fire...reckless...better not....burned my trees."}

Groundsman Fredericks stepped from a small copse of trees next to the beach. He took quick stock of the situation and seeing the Professor Freeman seemed to have things well in hand seemed content to simply wait. But suddenly the wind shifted and a strange look played across his face.

_{"Sulpher...and bitter root!"}

[Prof. Michael Freeman]

Professor Freeman tweaked the spell, letting the full force of the pain through to Verin.

"You've been eviscerated," he said, calmly. "Currently, the only thing holding certain vital organs inside you is me. While I appreciate the whole cut-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face outlook on life, do you really want to have a first-hand anatomy lesson in the process?"

"Back to the academy," he said to Susan. "I smell ozone, which means lightning, and thus all kinds of internal injuries. You're going to the infirmary."

[Susan Daunt]

"I was struck by magical lightning and electrocuted, Mr. Freeman," Susan answered vaguely as she complied with the order.